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Kim-kraut? Sauer-chi? Sriracha Slaw ! ! !

About: I think my interests tell a lot about me, I'm a multimedia artist which means I work in whatever medium grabs my attention, paint on canvas is very relaxing and acrylic paint can be mixed with paper to make ...
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A lot of cultures preserve cabbage by fermentation. Sauerkraut is finely sliced cabbage stored in an earthen crock and layered with salt then allowed to ferment. Korean Kim-chi is chopped cabbage and several other veggies that are coated with a spice and salt mix and then allowed to ferment in an earthen pot, often buried in the yard for several years. Fermented curciferous vegetables are a good source of antioxidents, are thought to help with battling bad cholesterol and help carbohydrate metabolism or weight loss. So it's healthy food that I think tastes good.

Step 1: How I Got the Idea

Several weeks ago I found a couple jars of "spicy mixed salad" on sale at a discount store, it looked interesting but certainly wasn't spicy in my opinion (go figure) it's a mixture of carrots, cucumbers, sweet peppers, onion and various spices. It was tasty especially after I added a lot of sriracha sauce and it got me thinking. I like sauerkraut and I like kim-chi so why not make my own "salad"

Step 2: What's in It

I bought a small bag of sliced cabbage for coleslaw pickled jalapeno peppers to taste pickled garlic to taste roasted red peppers sweet bread and butter pickles kikoman sriracha sauce, This isn't as spicy as the original with the green top but it was kicking around in my pantry salt about 4 tablespoons

Step 3: Getting Started

Some preservation techniques require you to heat the cabbage, others you massage the salt into the cabbage and later rinse it off. I put the shredded cabbage in a glass dish and added about 3-4tablespoons of fresh ground sea salt, I massaged it in and let it sit, returning every 1/2 hour to stir and massage the cabbage some more. After about 2 hours I rinsed the cabbage under cold running water and dried it in a spinner before sprinkling with another teaspoon or so of salt, as you can see in the photos it lost about a 1/3 of it's mass

Step 4: Chop Chop

while the cabbage was salting I cut the pickled jalapenos, garlic, roasted red peppers and sweet pickles into a rough chop

Step 5: Mix

I poured the bottle of sriracha sauce over the salted cabbage then added the chopped veggies and stirred it all together. I let the mix sit for about an hour then packed it tightly in the reused very clean jar

Step 6: I Couldn't Wait...

I couldn't wait for it to ferment, I had to try it but that's ok since both sauerkraut and kim-chi are often used after only a couple hours. I made a wrap using a whole wheat tortilla, olive oil based mayonnaise, low sodium ham and turkey with cheese and my sriracha slaw, talk about food fusion ! cuban sandwich filling in a mexican type tortilla and korean inspired fermented cabbage

You're probably right, this is definitely not for the neophyte chilihead or even a sophomore for that matter . People often ask about the "afterburner" effect as well, which is something I don't experience so I suppose my entire system has adapted over the years

Very true....the mixture of spicy sriracha and the documented effect of cabbage on the gastrointestinal system seems to be a perfect storm for the "afterburner effect" indeed. I may have to wait and try this one over the weekend.

I'd suggest making it early and letting it sit, it does get better with age. As with all my food guides you can and should adapt this for your own tastes. Use less sriracha (or more slaw) leave out the peppers or use a hot banana pepper in its place. I wouldn't change the sweet pickles except for maybe chopped sweet gerkins, there's something about the burst of sweet that really compliments the heat of the slaw and of course that was the inspiration for creating this in the 1st place. If you do make some let me know how it turns out...